Bull Connor

Eugene "Bull" Connor (11 July 1897-10 March 1973) was the Commissioner of Public Safety of Birmingham, Alabama from 1937 to 1952 and from 1957 to 1963. He was infamous for his opposition to the Civil Rights movement, using attack dogs and fire hoses against protesters.

Biography
Eugene Connor was born in Selma, Alabama on 11 July 1897, the son of a train dispatcher and telegraph operator. Connor was a staunch Southern Democrat, and he won a seat in the State House of Representatives in 1934 as a US Democratic Party member. While he followed the Democrats' populist views, he twisted these views to include only the views of the rural whites of the state, meaning that he was an avid partisan of segregation and racism. In 1937, he became the Commissioner of Public Safety of the city of Birmingham, and he vehemently resisted the Civil Rights movement and efforts to desegregated society. In 1954, he pushed through with a city ordinance that outlawed communism in Birmingham, cracking down on opponents of conservatism. During the early 1960s, Connor used fire hoses and attack dogs to disperse crowds of civil rights protesters, and he ensured that the police did not interfere in the Ku Klux Klan's firebombings of the Freedom Riders' buses on 14 May 1961; he claimed that the police were on leave for Mothers' Day. He also did nothing about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, angering the people of Birmingham. As Birmingham devolved into a state of anarchy, Connor lost the support of the public, and he vacated his office in April 1963. He died of a stroke in 1973.